Louise Bourgeois photographed in 1990 behind her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970) Photo Raimon Ramis © Adagp, Paris 2008 "I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful." - Louise Bourgeois The artist Louise Bourgeois has died at 98 on Monday at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. It seemed that she would live forever. Her career has been historic. Holland Cotter has just written in the New York Times that "her psychologically charged abstract sculptures, drawings and prints had a galvanizing effect on younger artists, particularly women." I have been inspired by Louise Bourgeois' work for quite some time, having encountered her sculptures for the first time when I was a High School student taking classes at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. Her life ends but the mystery embodied in her artwork lives on. A recent bio provides the details: "Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911 to a family of tapestry restorers...
